In the last a few a long time, you will find been a gentle drop inside the quantity of U.S. pilots. According Aviation consultancy firms for the Plane Proprietors and Pilots Association (AOPA), there were 827,000 energetic, certificated pilots in 1980. By 2011, that range experienced dropped to only 617,000. All through that same 30-year period, creation of single-engine planes dropped from 14,000 per calendar year to much less than 700.

But for your past a few many years, AOPA has built knowing this declining development and reversing it a major priority. AOPA steps include things like acquiring a network of traveling golf equipment, and speaking out in Washington to help you preserve the growing cost and complexity of aviation below control.

Thankfully, 2013 numbers are indicating a favourable upswing, based upon data within the Typical Aviation Companies Association's (GAMA) 2013 Normal Aviation Statistical Databook & 2014 Field Outlook.

Here's a look at what's been causing the pilot and manufacturing decline, and good news from GAMA's 2013/2014 aviation business report.

What's been causing the drop?

According to a Washington Post article posted February 9 titled, “Small aviation businesses say pilot shortage could drive industry into the ground,” there are a variety of factors that have contributed into the drop in pilots and generation over the past decades, including soaring fuel prices and heightened flying restrictions following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

One reason is that the recent economic downturn has left much less people with discretionary income. Others place much of the blame on federal regulators, whom they accuse of making it too difficult for pilots to obtain and renew their licenses, which in turn hurts small aviation businesses and the aviation sector as a whole.

Many commercial pilots come with the GA pilot pool, and the global airline market will need almost a half million new commercial airline pilots more than the next 20 several years, in accordance on the Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2013-2032.